Best movie of this year hands down!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

"The Wild and the Innocent" was a different sort of western for star Audie Murphy. In it he plays a naïve, innocent semi illiterate mountain man who sees the lights of a big town for the first time.Yancy (Murphy), his Uncle Lije (George Mitchell) and Lije's wife Kiri (Lillian Adams) are on their way to trade their beaver pelts at their usual trading post. Along the way, Uncle Lije is mauled by a bear and is unable to continue. Yancy is forced to carry on alone. The trading post has been burned to the ground as a result of drunken Indians made so by rot gut whiskey sold to them by the unscrupulous Ben Stocker (Strother Martin). Stocker, who is travelling westward with his wife and several children, offers up his eldest daughter, the unkempt Rosalie (Sandra Dee) for half of Yancy's furs. He refuses. But Rosalie leaves her family and attaches herself to Yancy much to his dismay. The two continue on to the nearest town and arrive on the 4th of July amid the celebrations.In town, Yancy gets into an altercation with drover Chip (Peter Breck) and is rescued by the town sheriff (Gilbert Roland) who takes a shine to Rosalie. Yancy meanwhile, takes his furs to the General Store run by Forbes (Jim Backus) who is playing in the town band. Yancy sees Marcy (Joanne Dru), a saloon girl and becomes smitten with her.The Sheriff in the meantime, cleans Rosalie up, dresses her in a fancy gown and begins to wine and dine her while all the time she pines for Yancy. Yancy unaware of the town's feelings, asks Marcy to the town dance. The townsfolk shun her and she is forced to explain the facts of life to the innocent Yancy. She tells him that the Sheriff is the owner of the Dance Hall and that Rosalie is with him.Yancy being a bible thumping sort, sees red and goes and gets his gun and goes after Rosalie and...............................................................................Murphy and Dee make a May-September couple. Murphy's character is supposed to be in his early 20s but in fact was 35 at the time and Dee only 17. Roland on the other hand, was in his 50s at the time making him a somewhat of a dirty old man.The best part of the movie is when Strother Martin is on the screen. His portrayal of the slimy slithering whiskey drummer is classic Martin.Not much action but "The Wild and the Innocent" is an enjoyable little opus nonetheless.

The title sounds like it might have been one of those exploitation flicks from the Thirties or Forties. In a way, I guess the picture delivers a bit on that idea if you think about it. A hillbilly gal (Sandra Dee) ditches her thieving father (Strother Martin) and siblings and hitches her star to Yancy Hawks (Audie Murphy), but due to the naiveté of both, she winds up as a dance hall saloon gal. This could have been a real downer if she ever actually went to work, but fortunately Yancy made the save just in time.Anyone growing up during the era will recall Sandra Dee as a teenage heartthrob and I imagine she fluttered a few when this picture came out. Ben Stocker (Martin) had it right when he said she'd be real purty once you cleaned her up, but gee, I thought she was worth more than a couple of furs. Murphy's character had one of the best lines in the story when he told old Ben that "the Lord sure made a mistake lettin' people like you have children". Ouch! For his part, Yancy initially had his eye out for saloon gal Marcy Howard (Joanne Dru), but I couldn't understand why he couldn't put two and two together when he found her passed out among the ferns. Yancy was a bumpkin in more ways than one, and even though I can imagine that there once might have been people as clueless as he was, it still had a hard time translating on screen.In it's own way, the story had a nice, happy ending if you can get past the idea of thirty five year old Murphy finally hooking up with a teenager half his age. But it wasn't as ridiculous as Sheriff Paul (Gilbert Roland) putting the move on her himself, I'm glad the picture didn't go too far in that direction. You know, I had to wonder what the town folk must have really thought about their saloon owner lawman. Right after Yancy shot the sheriff (sounds like a good idea for a song), one of the citizens says to Yancy, "That was great shootin', fella". Not too much sympathy there for a guy who cleaned up the whole town.

a gentler movie than most of Audie Murphy's westerns - he's a gosh-darn hillbilly man - who meets a plum dirty hillbilly girl - and cain't see thru the messy hair & filthy clothes to her Sandra Dee appeal - but at the town where they come to trade their furs - the sheriff there does see it - while the hillbilly boy is a smitten by the lady dressed in scarletthis was never gonna be a great movie - but it weren't even average - the story didn't generate any tension cuz of the long dry scenes - and cuz everything was so predictablethe chemistry between Audie and Sandra Dee showed considerable promise - while Gilbert Roland almost steals the movie as the suave latino sheriff

I really should have given it a 5 of 10, but it just felt good to watch.This movie reminds me of some of the Elvis movies where they surrounded him with great character actors. Audie was famous years before Elvis, but in a different way. I would not be surprised if Audie was a hero of Elvis.Anyway, this is a vehicle movie made for Audie, and it works fine. Audie is a good actor, and you will always get what you expect from one of his movies. Sandra Dee is good as well; she conveys much with her pouty face without ever saying a word.Worth watching.